Comments on: Troubling facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 3 of 4)

By: Greg Boutin

Greg Boutin — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:09:54 +0000

Thanks Robert (lots of anonymous comments these days – MaRS really scares people!)

Interesting information on MaRS’ Life Science lead.

“Government funding is essential for exploratory research” –> I agree completely. The question is in what form? I believe SR&ED is the best mechanism for companies to pursue risky R&D, and then universities are there (and well subsidized) for fundamental research.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:01:48 +0000

Great many posts regarding MaRS! Someone’s got to keep them honets.

You should look at MaRS’ Life Sciences Lead. He does not even have any education in the life sciences field. Credibility…? I think not!

On other posts … government funding is essential for exploratory research. However, accountability must be an essential part of the government funding model.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:47:00 +0000

Here’s another headsup: MaRS hires a handful of freelancers that do not get published in the ‘public sector’ salary document. These contractors all receive upwards of 30K a month to consult on various public facing materials. They keep them on contract instead of hiring them full-time, because then they don’t use up their salary quotas on these enormous pay outs.

By: Growth Times » Troubling Facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 4 of 4): Suggestions for Public Support to Entrepreneurs

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:45:04 +0000

[...] Troubling Facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 3 of 4) (growthtimes.com) [...]

By: Growth Times » Troubling Facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 3.5 of 4)

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:00:22 +0000

[...] Troubling Facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 3 of 4) (growthtimes.com) [...]

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:33:55 +0000

IMHO these challenging economic times should be a catalyst to investigate new avenues and paradigms with respect to economic development. OAR Open, Accountable and Results based economic development is important. Your post definetly highlights the need for more OAR’s in all aspects of economic develoment.

Here is a link to an Ottawa blog post I wrote along those lines; http://bit.ly/bTcUx9

By: Stephen van Egmond

Stephen van Egmond — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:40:47 +0000

About time someone called b……t on MaRS. I looked at co-locating my startup there, but the absurdly overbuilt building and astronomical fees sent me the other direction.

I’m curious what your approaches are to improve public support for entrepreneurs.

It’s hard not to think of the e-health fiasco, with the widely-quoted $1B lost. A venture capital program that spreads around 250 x $200K investments with 25x10M follow-up investments in the big winners would yield results that would transform health care in the western hemisphere, with half the money left over for important stuff like public transit.